What Is the Average Rent by South Bay City in 2026?

Published July 15, 2026

Hawthorne runs near $1,980 a month while Redondo Beach tops $3,275. Here is the current rent picture by city and bedroom count.

As of July 2026, average apartment rent across the South Bay ranges from about $1,980 a month in Hawthorne to roughly $3,275 in Redondo Beach, with Torrance and Inglewood sitting in between around $2,500. These figures come from RentCafe's Yardi Matrix data set, which tracks larger apartment buildings (50-plus units) and is updated monthly. Smaller cities like El Segundo and Manhattan Beach have too little large scale apartment stock for that same data set to publish a reliable number, which itself tells you something about those markets.

Owners ask us to sanity check their rent roll against the broader market constantly, so here is the current snapshot along with where the numbers come from and where they get thin.

The city by city breakdown

Using RentCafe's Yardi Matrix data, current as of July 2, 2026:

• Hawthorne: overall average $1,980. Studio $1,527, one bedroom $1,920, two bedroom $2,558.
• Inglewood: overall average $2,489. Studio $1,529, one bedroom $2,364, two bedroom $2,840.
• Torrance: overall average $2,544. Studio $1,720, one bedroom $2,203, two bedroom $2,941, three bedroom $3,595.
• Redondo Beach: overall average $3,275, up 5.1% year over year from $3,117. Studio $2,843, one bedroom $3,150, two bedroom $3,798.

El Segundo and Manhattan Beach do not have a reliable RentCafe large building average because both cities are dominated by single family homes, duplexes, and small condo buildings rather than 50-plus unit apartment complexes. Zillow's rental market trend page separately lists El Segundo's overall median asking rent near $2,995 and Manhattan Beach considerably higher, reflecting a very different mix of housing stock (mostly single family and small multifamily) rather than an apples to apples comparison with the Yardi Matrix cities above. Treat those two figures as directional, not as precise as the four cities where Yardi Matrix has real coverage.

Why the gap between cities is wider than it looks

Hawthorne and Inglewood sit inland from the beach cities and closer to LAX and the 105/405 interchange, which keeps rents lower relative to Redondo Beach and Manhattan Beach's direct beach proximity. Torrance lands in the middle because it is a larger, more varied city with both inland and coastal adjacent neighborhoods. None of this is news to anyone who owns in the South Bay, but it matters when you are setting rent on a specific unit: a two bedroom in Hawthorne renting near the $2,558 city average is priced very differently from a two bedroom in Redondo Beach at $3,798, even though they might be a fifteen minute drive apart.

As a separate benchmark, HUD's Fiscal Year 2026 Fair Market Rent for the Los Angeles-Long Beach-Glendale HUD Metro FMR Area, which covers all of LA County including the South Bay, set the two bedroom FMR at $2,601 effective October 1, 2025, then revised it upward to $2,903 effective May 21, 2026 after local public housing agencies submitted rental market survey data (an 11.61% increase across all bedroom sizes, published in the Federal Register on April 21, 2026). FMR is a federal benchmark used to set Housing Choice Voucher payment standards, not a market average, but it is a useful floor reference: the beach adjacent South Bay cities are pricing above even the revised figure, while Hawthorne's two bedroom average sits below it.

What this means for you

If you are pricing a vacancy or reviewing whether an existing tenant's rent has fallen behind market, anchor to your specific city and bedroom count rather than a South Bay wide average, since the spread between Hawthorne and Redondo Beach is over $1,200 a month at the two bedroom level. If your property sits in El Segundo or Manhattan Beach, treat any single published average with some skepticism given the smaller data pool, and weight recent comparable listings in your immediate neighborhood more heavily than a citywide number.

If you would rather have someone else track these comps against your specific units every month, that is a normal part of what we do for owners at Schofield.

This is general information about market rent levels, not a substitute for a formal rent comparable analysis or appraisal.

Sources

1. RentCafe, Average Rent in Torrance, CA
2. RentCafe, Average Rent in Hawthorne, CA
3. RentCafe, Average Rent in Inglewood, CA
4. RentCafe, Average Rent in Redondo Beach, CA
5. Zillow Rental Manager, Market Trends: El Segundo, CA
6. HUD USER, FY 2026 Fair Market Rents dataset
7. Federal Register, Fair Market Rents FY 2026, Revised (April 21, 2026)

Last verified: July 2026.

Topics: market, rent trends, South Bay, El Segundo, comparables

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Schofield Properties is a family run property management company at 323 Richmond St, El Segundo, CA 90245. We have managed the South Bay since 1972 and personally oversee about 186 doors today. Book a call to talk about your property.